A rear combination lamp to be disposed in a rear portion of a vehicle body on either side has been known to include a plurality of types of lamps having different functions within a lighting chamber defined by a housing and an outer lens that covers the opening of the housing. Such lamps having different functions may include a tail lamp, a turn indicator lamp, a back-up lamp, and the like.
Such a rear combination lamp is demanded to be reduced in size. In order to do so, some rear combination lamps have been configured to employ a light emitting element such as a light emitting diode (LED) as at least one of the plurality of types of lamps, for example, as a light source for a tail lamp. In these lamps, further employed is a light guiding lens that is configured to guide light emitted from the light emitting element to be illuminated with the light as if the light guiding lens itself can emit light. This type of lighting unit can be found in a publication of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-161697.
When the light guiding lens is to be illuminated with light emitted from the light emitting element, there is known a conventional light guiding lens 111 as illustrated in FIG. 1. This light guiding lens 111 can have an attachment portion 111C integrally formed near a light incident surface 111a thereof. The attachment portion 111C herein is formed to extend in a direction substantially perpendicular to a direction in which the light is incident on and substantially travels through the light guiding lens 111.
In this lamp in which the attachment portion 111C is integrally formed in part of the light guiding lens 111, as illustrated in FIG. 1, the light emitted from a light emitting element 109 can enter the light guiding lens 111 through the light incident surface 111a and can be repeatedly totally reflected to travel within the light guiding lens 111. In this case, part of the light travelling within the light guiding lens 111 may be spread into and pass and exit through the attachment portion 111C to the outside without total reflection, as illustrated in FIG. 1. Therefore, there arises a problem in which the base end portion or the like of the attachment portion 111C emit light to be locally illuminated (so-called point light emission), whereby it is not desirable in terms of aesthetic point of view.